Unable to create a local user group on an ESXi 5.1 and later host

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• You are unable to create a local user group on an ESXi 5.1 or later host.
• After upgrading to vSphere 5.1 or later, you cannot create a local user group on the host.
• You see the error:
  
  The operation is not supported for the object. Call "HostLocalAccountManager.CreateGroup" for object "ha-localacctmgr" on ESXi "hostname" failed.
• The hostd.log file located in /var/log contains entries similar to:
  
  14:42:41.154Z [5A62EB90 info 'TaskManager' opID=7859ED9D-00000079] Task Created : haTask-ha-folder-root-vim.host.LocalAccountManager.createGroup-498484360
  14:42:41.154Z [5A62EB90 error 'Default' opID=7859ED9D-00000079] CreateGroup: Local group operations are not supported
  14:42:41.154Z [5A62EB90 info 'Default' opID=7859ED9D-00000079] AdapterServer caught exception: vmodl.fault.NotSupported

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Cause

This issue occurs because local user groups and associated group specific methods are not supported from vSphere 5.1 or later.

Resolution

To work around this issue, add local ESXi users in vSphere Client.